Day 2550 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Luke 5:31 NIV
All of this talk about sins and mistakes and taking responsibility for our choices has left me thinking. I'll be the first to admit that I've gotten a lot wrong in life. Made a bunch of really bad choices. But as I've been thinking back on some of them, I had a really weird thought cross my mind. While I have my regrets, I wouldn't change very much of it. I wish I had started trying to do better a long time ago. But looking back now, I can see the lessons that I've learned. And I know that they've made me stronger.
We often look back at our lives and see all those mistakes we've made and feel this sense of guilt and shame. Nobody likes messing up. Nobody finds pride in making mistakes. As we discussed yesterday, our mistakes have made us feel the need to hide out in the shadows so that our weaknesses and errors aren't known to those around us. We don't want anyone to know that we're not perfect. We don't even want to admit to ourselves that we're not perfect.
So we avoid looking at our struggles. We gloss over our weaknesses. We try to hide our flaws so that they don't shine through and nobody has to know about them. But what if rather than seeing our past mistakes as grounds to feel ashamed, we could see them as chances to heal? What if we could see those poor choices as lessons that helped us learn how to make better decisions? What if rather than trying to hide our imperfections, we saw them as opportunities to see Christ work in our lives?
That's why I can say that I wouldn't change very much about my past. I'm far from proud of many things that I've done. But those mistakes have helped me see just how badly I need the mercy and salvation that Christ offers us. Those dumb choices have helped me learn to try harder, to do better, and to strive for more than what I may think is good enough. While my past may not be perfect, it has led me to a perfect Savior who can mend all that I've broken.
The truth is that if we never made any mistakes, we would never fully understand the gravity of God's gift in Jesus Christ. If we didn't feel that sting of guilt and shame, then we wouldn't be able to appreciate the value of His forgiveness. So while nobody is perfect and each of us have done plenty of things we're not proud of doing, those poor choices have brought us to our knees. And that's just where we need to be to accept Christ into our hearts.
We don't need to wait until we're perfect to turn to Christ. We don't have to wait until we've gotten everything figured out and fixed to ask Him into our lives. As this verse reminds us, He knows. He knows all about all the mistakes we've made. He knows every sin. He knows that we would never be able to be anything but broken without Him. That's why He came. That's why He endured the cross. That's why He bore our punishment. He took our place so that we could have the opportunity to be something we should never be able to dream of being.
He loves us even though we don't deserve it. Please don't keep running away from Him until you feel worthy. That's not how this works. Jesus is a gift to those who don't deserve Him. He came for the broken, the dirty, the helpless, the hopeless, the lost, the confused, the foolish, and the sinful. That's all of us! But thanks to His gift, who we've been is only one part of the story. And while we can't change that part, we can allow Him to write a much better ending.
After all, who we've been or what we've done doesn't matter nearly as much as who our Father is and how much He loves those who aren't worthy of such grace!
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